


Travelin' Soldier

by AnonEMouse



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Except Clint's not on the new team so...FUTURE ANGST!, It's all getting Jossed anyway so cheer up, Loosely inspired by that effing sad song so be warned, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:05:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEMouse/pseuds/AnonEMouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson was always one step ahead of Clint, in all things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Travelin' Soldier

It was a pretty town.

Small. Friendly. Personal, despite the Wal-Mart off the state route leading into town. The movie theater only had three screens, the lone fast food franchise was limited to a Dairy Queen, and there was an actual, honest to God diner with a sign that just said _Diner_. (They served a killer fucking apple pie.) And on a Friday night, every business on Main Street was closed and the whole town was packed into the high school football stadium.

Clint leaned against a strut under the bleachers, rolling a toothpick between his teeth. Stark and Rogers were on the fifty yard line with the mayor and the principal. Stark was talking about the huge donation he was making to the school. New athletic fields, new library, new computer labs—hell, he was practically rebuilding the damn place. Rogers stood silently next to him, straight and tall in his dress blues. He was holding a tattered, folded flag and was wearing his stern captain’s face.

A kid with a trumpet stepped out of the marching band’s formation and played taps.

//

The first time Phil Coulson saw Clint Barton, he shot him.

Clint, torn between incredulity and rage, slowed down long enough for Coulson to catch up to him and handcuff him even as he passed out. Clint’s last memory of their initial meeting was Coulson saying, “It’s just a flesh wound.”

The second time Clint Barton saw Phil Coulson, he broke Coulson’s nose.

“That’s for shooting me,” he said, and he grinned every time he saw Coulson’s newly crooked nose.

They were even, Clint said, and Coulson agreed. Except he would always add, after a beat, when he knew he could get the last word, “But I shot you first.”

//

Coulson was Clint’s handler, but he didn’t always accompany Clint into the field. Coulson had his own shit to do. He was already Level Seven when he “recruited” Clint, and within a few years of that, he was running all of field ops. Coulson was ambitious; he didn’t want to be director, like Fury, or even assistant director—he loved the field too much—but he and Fury had a vision for SHIELD. Clint was part of that vision, and later, Natasha. To that end, Coulson kept him busy. If he wasn’t prepping for or recuperating from a mission, he was training, relentlessly. Coulson had expectations that Clint, for once in his life, was not going to disappoint.

And that really would have been enough. To be Coulson’s favorite, to be his most trusted agent, really would have satisfied Clint. He’d learned long ago not to expect things, not to hope for more or better or even just a little. He took what he was offered and he made do. It was the Clint Barton Way.

“Have dinner with me,” Coulson said. They were both covered in soot and grime from the car bomb explosion and bullets were raining down on a shitty bazaar in a shitty square in a shitty part of Tangier.

“Are you fucking— _what_?”

“When we get back to Marrakech, have dinner with me. Moroccan food is incredible. You shouldn’t miss out.” Coulson smiled at him, that little quirky not-quite-smile, and lobbed a grenade toward the hostile agents.

“You get us out of here, I’ll let you eat Moroccan food off my bare ass.”

“That doesn’t sound very sanitary.”

Clint just grinned and went back to picking off the snipers positioned around the square.

And they did go to dinner, once they made it to Marrakech to await their next target. Coulson was right about the food. It was incredible. (And so, in a different context later that night, was Clint’s bare ass.)

When they recounted their first date, Clint would claim it was his proposition that opened the door to their relationship, but Coulson always replied, “But I asked you out first.”

//

They didn’t ever talk about what they were doing. Clint was liberal and open and had a raised-by-carnies permissive sexuality, but Coulson was small-town, Middle America, _Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell_. And Coulson had those ambitions—fucking his top agent was delightful, but it wasn’t part of his Official Career Plan.

Clint understood. He wasn’t polished like Natasha or crisply professional like Hill, and he was a man, which shouldn’t have mattered but it did. It did.

So he stayed back. As far as anyone was concerned, Clint and Coulson were friends, the kind of friends made by field operations gone to shit, time spent in dank prison cells, wrist-deep in each other’s blood, bullet scars and broken noses. They weren’t just fellow agents or asset/handler. They were warrior-brothers. (Heartsoul lovers.)

Coulson moved around a lot; sometimes he took Clint, a lot of the time he didn’t. But he always wrote, sending a randomized combination of letters, emails and postcards. And Clint replied, whenever he could, for he was busy with his own missions and goals, and he made it be enough.

They communicated in code, a mix of espionage and inside jokes, pet names and official designations. It was their own private language that out of context, looked like good spies being good at their job. But it was the voice of their hearts, whispering secrets from halfway around the world.

//

I watched a _Supernanny_ marathon today. The trip is a bust, the seller won’t sell, so I’m heading back. Thought I’d check out Area 51 on my way home. Maybe stop at that weird diner that’s on all those Travel Channel shows. Send you a postcard.

(Stark is driving me nuts and he’s not playing ball. I’m being reassigned to New Mexico, something to do with aliens. I miss you. I’ll send for you.)

Weather sucks. Food sucks. The Pirates suck. I did find that thing I thought I lost. Turns out I left it in the freezer. I’ll be looking for that postcard.

(The weather sucks, the food sucks and Fury sucks. But we found him. I miss you, too.)

//

They traded _I love you_ ’s in Detroit, of all places. The missions had been getting weirder and weirder, so casing an arms deal felt like a milk run. It was just the two of them, in the final days before Natasha would be cleared for field duty and join their team. They probably could have taken down the arms dealers, but Stark tech kept getting up and walking away and Coulson was more interested in finding out where it was going than dinging the middle management of a second-rate arms operation.

After they wrapped up, Coulson booked them a night in the Double Tree, but Clint merely lifted his brows and refrained from commenting. He did, however, smile vacantly at the desk clerk and swing his hips as he followed Coulson to the elevators, looking for all the world like a rentboy picked up by an out-of-town businessman.

“Tease,” Coulson said mildly.

“Just working my covers, sir.” Clint’s grin was cheeky.

“Well if you’re going to flaunt it…”

And Clint proceeded to enact the Total Rentboy Experience, complete with strip tease and complimentary blow job. Laughing, sated, Coulson leaned over him on the bed and stared as if he was memorizing every detail of Clint in that moment.

“I love you,” he murmured, stroking the bullet scar on Clint’s thigh.

Clint’s grin faded and he stilled. No one had loved him in a long, long time. He’d forgotten the feeling. He traced the crooked line of Coulson’s nose. “God, I’ve loved you for ages.”

Smile spreading slowly, Coulson kissed him. “I still said it first.”

//

But _I love you_ didn’t change anything. Not really. Coulson was busier than ever, always on the move, and too often, Clint was left behind. He didn’t sulk—he was busy, too—but he was nearing forty and sometimes he wondered if waiting for his man to have one day off in every thirty was all he could expect. He’d spent nearly half his life devoted to Coulson, and he didn’t regret it, but he was Level Seven, too, and he didn’t understand why they couldn’t just hold hands on a night out or keep a safe house in the Catskills or something. He was finally Coulson’s equal, no longer his asset, and it was years and years since anyone thought of him as some kind of broken toy in need of repair.

“Do you ever want more?” he asked one night as Coulson drew random patterns on his bare back.

“More?” Coulson shifted so he could look down at Clint.

“Yeah, you know. Wouldn’t it be nice to be, I dunno, official?”

“I felt pretty official a few minutes ago.”

Clint chuckled and fell silent.

“Clint,” Coulson said quietly. “Our careers—”

“What if I said I didn’t care about my career? That I’d quit tomorrow if you would, too?”

Coulson was very quiet and very, very still. “I don’t want to quit tomorrow.”

“What about in like, ten years?”

Coulson laughed. “When I retire, you can quit. I’ll hang a banner at my retirement party that says, _I’ve been banging Barton all along_ , and we’ll get matching rockers for our front porch and I’ll marry you the next day.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“No, but it’s dibs on proposing first.”

//

When the next set of marching orders came, Clint accepted his assignment to oversee security at Project Pegasus and did what he’d always done—been the perfect fucking agent and waited for Coulson. At least Coulson was working the mission, too, serving as the liaison with NASA. So he was on site sometimes, checking in on the project (and slipping into Clint’s quarters at night for slow, silent sex). And Clint made it be enough.

Until the Tesseract. And Loki. And that goddamned spear.

His whole world fell apart.

//

Taps finished and the kid rejoined the band formation.

“And now we’ll have a moment of silence to honor those that died in the Battle of New York, including our own hometown hero, Agent Phillip J. Coulson.”

The stadium was quiet but for the wind rustling the grass and the snap of the flags held up by the color guard. As the silence went on, Rogers approached the black-clad line of family members, the mother, sisters, nieces and nephews Clint had never met but heard all about, and handed Mrs. Coulson the dirtied, folded flag. He saluted as Mrs. Coulson clutched the flag to her chest, and a young girl standing on the track circling the football field began singing the national anthem.

Clint turned and headed for the parking lot. He’d parked at the far end, and by the time he reached his bike, the crowd was cheering and the announcers were naming the starting lineup. He straddled his bike but as he went to kick it to life, his breath broke and a hitching sob escaped him.

He had attended the SHIELD memorial and the Avengers Only Tribute to Agent Agent hosted at Stark Tower, but he hadn’t mourned beyond that. Coulson’s funeral was for family only, and since not even Fury or Natasha dared intrude, Clint didn’t either. He followed Natasha’s lead; as far as anyone was concerned, they were both grieving the loss of their former handler and friend. That Clint’s heart was broken was a secret between him and Coulson’s ghost.

“Goddammit,” he muttered, wiping his eyes. He kicked his bike into gear and pulled out of the parking lot as the crowd roared and the game got underway.

At the edge of town he considered his options. He could go west, and keep going. He could disappear and hope Natasha never found him. Or he could go east, go back to the closest thing to a home he’d ever had, but one that was irrevocably tainted (by his own hands). He thought about what Coulson would want him to do. So he turned east, to see what he could salvage with SHIELD, what he could build with the Avengers.

He’d waited on Coulson for nearly twenty years. Coulson could wait on him for a while.


End file.
